by Karen Hopkin
It started out as a joke. A witty little tidbit to toss out at cocktail parties. But word of the calendar spread quicker than plague, because once reporters clamp their jaws shut around a juicy story like the Studmuffins of Science calendar, they're loath to let go.
I came up with the idea of doing a Ph.D.-pinup calendar in the spring of '93. Back then, I was working my first gig as a sciencewriter at the AAAS Communications office in Washington, DC. And I was looking for trouble.
The fact that I could even equate "scientists" with "studmuffins" says something about my state of mind at the time. I was somewhat starved for male attention, to put it politely. After spending nearly one quarter of my natural life working in the lab, I missed being surrounded by clever, curious, crazyscience guys. So I hatched a scheme that would have made Lucille Ball proud. I decided to assemble the world's first calendar featuring handsome, athletic, dynamic Ph.D.s. What a fine way to show the world that scientists are not, by definition, a bunch of bespectacled nerds with pocket protectors! And what a fine way for me to meet men!
While I lived in DC, my original calendar plan never really got off the ground. Sure, it entertained me and my AAAS pals. I'd even considered pitching it to the AAAS Board of Directors. It seemed to me that a beefcake science calendar was a "public understanding of science" project if ever there was one.
And there I left it. Until I moved to New York to work at Science Friday. Maybe I hit the local cocktail-party circuit with a bit too much zeal. But I found myself telling a few more people about my kooky calendar idea.
Word does travel fast. Especially when the word is "studmuffin." It wasn't long before Keay Davidson from the San Francisco Examiner called to ask if he could write about my Studmuffins of Science calendar.
"Keay, there really is no calendar," I confessed. "It's just a joke. Anyway, how did you hear about it?"
"They announced it at the Northern California ScienceWriters Association meeting last night," he said.
Near as I can tell, I told Robert Coontz at The Sciences, who told Mary Miller at the Exploratorium, who told Blake Edgar at NCSWA, who announced it at their regular gathering. Some day I'm sure I'll thank these individuals for talking out of school. But not today.
Of course, no matter what these good people thought, there still was no calendar. But Keay was persistent. He called back a few weeks later to encourage me to think about putting the calendar together. After all, he gently reminded me, if he knew about it, maybe other people did, too. And if I didn't act soon, I might be scooped.
Ah, the ultimate horror! Some conniving, well-connected competitor could actually take credit for my idea. I couldn't let it happen. I had to start trawling for studs.
"If you have a Y chromosome and a Ph.D., you could be Dr. December," promised the ad I placed in the electronic version of the Annals of Improbable Research.
That's when Tansy Holden called. She wanted to run a blurb about the calendar in the Random Samples section of Science. But I was still a bit hesitant about promoting a product that didn't technically exist. "Look," I said, in a thick, New York accent that I thought might temporarily scare her away. "I don't have the money, I don't have a publisher, I don't even have twelve studs."
"Okay, I'll call back in two weeks," she said. And she wasn't kidding. So much for my intimidating New Yorker routine.
So with the help of Dan Forbush and the entire Profnet system, I was able to scare up a dozen dashing young doctorates who were willing to give it a go. And if they were game, so was I.
After the requisite amount of cyberchat, negotiation, and foot-dragging, the piece appeared in Science. A week later, Bob Langreth called and woke me from a dead sleep. "I didn't know you were really serious about this calendar thing!" he yelled excitedly into the phone.
"Yeah, the Times is running something in the magazine section this Sunday," I muttered, half asleep.
"This Sunday?" he said. "That means we have to get it in the Wall Street Journal tomorrow!"
The article appeared on July 28. And I have been catering to highly agitated, deadline-driven individuals from all areas of the media ever since. TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet. Local, national, and international. From New Scientist to New Woman, everyone wants to talk science studs.
Not that I'm complaining. In the early days, I had imagined that I'd have to call in all sorts of favors from fellow journalists in order to get the word out. Instead, I hear myself saying, "I simply do not have time to call back the London Times." I may be the only person in history to cower in fear when the phone rings, praying that it isn't another call from "A Current Affair."
Just about everyone I talk to has heard of the Studmuffins of Science calendar. Nearly every scientist I phone to interview for Science Friday whines about not being asked to pose. A few people have even told me that they came up with the idea of a scientist calendar years ago. "The difference is, you were smart enough not to act on it," I tell them with a grin.
Incidentally, I didn't "score" with any of the studs, as per my original plan. I think there are laws against that kind of thing, anyway.
To order your very own copy of the hottest science calendar ever published, send a check or money order for $14.95 (NY residents add appropriate sales tax) to Studmuffins of Science, PO Box 3382, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163. Or call the MIT Museum Shop at 617-253-4462. And if you'd like to visit the science studs in cyberspace, try our web page at http://studmuffins.clever.net/.
(Karen Hopkin is producer for National Public Radio's Science Friday and a free-lance science writer in Brooklyn, New York.)